


Goddesses and Monsters

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, look it's not as cracky as it sounds, more pre-relationship really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:42:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6393070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She looked into the heart of the TARDIS. Even I don't know how strong that is…She gets inside your head, translates alien languages for you. Maybe the raw energy can translate all sorts of thoughts.</p><p>She can start again. Live her life from scratch. If we take her back home, give her to a different family, tell 'em to bring her up properly…she might be all right.</p><p>Margaret Slitheen can live her life all over again. A second chance."<br/>-The Doctor, Boomtown</p><p>Margaret Slitheen is reborn on Raxacoricofallapatorious with memories of having been somebody else, somebody terrible. Determined to make amends, she fixates on the Earth--an Earth where the Sycorax ship wasn't destroyed and the Sycorax returned to enslave humanity--and Harriet Jones as her redemption.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goddesses and Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> This was written a long time ago (2006) for the Doctor Who femslash ficathon on Livejournal. I thought I'd lost it forever and recently managed to find it on the Wayback Machine so I'm posting it here so as not to lose it again. The request it was filling was for a little bit of angst, character banter, and some mucking up of history; nothing overly fluffy and happy and schmaltzy, involving any character from the new series, or Charlie Pollard. 
> 
> If this were still 2006 I'd say it contains spoilers for Aliens of London, World War Three, Boom Town, The Christmas Invasion, Tooth and Claw, but we're definitely past that now! It does draw heavily on the events of those episodes, though, and probably won't make sense if you haven't seen them.

_She looked into the heart of the TARDIS. Even I don't know how strong that is…She gets inside your head, translates alien languages for you. Maybe the raw energy can translate all sorts of thoughts._

_She can start again. Live her life from scratch. If we take her back home, give her to a different family, tell 'em to bring her up properly…she might be all right._

_Margaret Slitheen can live her life all over again. A second chance._

  
-The Doctor, Boomtown

 

***

**Raxacoricofallapatorious**

Blon Far Slen Gliddens Arsivenn. Who had once been Blon Fel Fotch Slitheen. 

Raxacoricofallipatorian. Daughter. Scholar.

Taken from the hatching grounds by the Arsivenn family, raised with a slough of hatchlings, each of whom when they came of age left the planet behind, heading for lives of adventure.

Only she stayed behind. The great unknown didn’t hold the fascination for her that it held for her brothers and sisters. It held fear.

Fear of herself.

Her life – as far back as she could remember – was shadowed by memories not her own. Wisps of emotions she had never felt, words that she had never spoken. Things that she would never do.

She came to define herself by who she wasn’t. And who she wasn’t was the person who had lived those memories.

The older she grew, the clearer those other memories, those emotions, became. They shaped her life. Instilled in her a fascination with a tiny planet that barely registered on the Raxacoricofallipatorian consciousness: Earth.

Because that’s where she remembered dying. At least, that’s where the memories ended, in a shocking, sudden burst of golden light. She couldn’t say whether that was death or not – but an ending was an ending, whether to death or otherwise, and dying was as convenient a term as anything.

She became a researcher in obscure planets. Her speciality: Earth, and the human race. Her doctoral thesis: the entrance of that tiny planet into the greater universe. Her overwhelming sorrow: that it began with enslavement – the free human culture continuing only in pockets on other planets, and all because they had shown mercy to a defeated enemy. Had allowed so brutal a race as the Sycorax to depart, unharmed.

And it was wrong. She knew it – in her gut, in her mind, in her heart - it was not how things were meant to be for the human race. It was destined for greater things.

The memory of the planet's double brush with near destruction loomed large in her mind. Even more disturbing were the memories of satisfaction and dark pleasure she’d felt as that destruction approached. No. She hadn’t felt them, not exactly. But part of her had, and - defining herself in opposition to those memories – she became obsessed with changing Earth’s past.

She knew it could be done. The memories told her so. Cunning and ruthless, they knew it was simply a matter of right time, right place: given sufficient application of the right kind of force, anything could be bent. Or broken.

There had to be a weak point, somewhere that a lever could be inserted and the future pried apart from the past, setting the enslavement of Earth adrift in time.

If she’d turned her attentions to something more meaningful, more recognised, she would have been hailed as one of the great minds of her age. But no one cared about Earth, and so no one cared about her.

 

****

**Earth**

The Doctor was an honourable man. Harriet Jones had known that from the moment she'd met him, had admired it.

His _honour_ had allowed the defeated Sycorax to retreat unharmed. Ironic that his honour was what doomed them.

The Doctor gone and the Sycorax returned. And not just a single ship, but an armada. With a choice. Surrender and survive. Or fight and die.

The blackened patches of fused stone now jutting from the Pacific Ocean were testament to how seriously they meant their choice. When she spoke for her country, she spoke for the world, and the words she chose were words of surrender. Her ashen bitter reward was to retain her position, to speak to the people on behalf of the Sycorax, to try and maintain some sort of civilisation in the face of such horror. The human race became fodder for the Sycorax slave trade, the Earth a breeding ground, but it survived.

It was impossible that she keep doing this, impossible that she stop. All she'd ever wanted was to do what was best for people: to protect them, to keep them safe. It had begun with her mother, expanded to include her District, and then her country. And now she bartered the safety of some for the freedom of others, even though safety was a concept rendered so nebulous it barely held meaning.

Every moment she spent walking the balance: hunting down resistance fighters on the one hand, funnelling anything she could to aid them on the other. Arguing that one person, one family, one county be spared, and offering another in their stead. It was monstrous, what she had become.

She was being ripped in two, slowly bleeding to death from the wound.

But she didn’t have a choice.

***

**Raxacoricofallapatorious**

It was obvious, really. Time and place and people were all there, ready to be slotted into a simple equation, the solution of which would change the Earth's future. The humans even had the means to save themselves; the knowledge was just held in the wrong hands, with those who controlled it rendered powerless by the Sycorax's technology, primitive as it was.

The solution was simple: ensure that the information was in the right hands. Right time and right place and _right person_ and the world could be changed.

Blon already knew the _when_ and _where_. Now her research showed her the who, and gave a name to the face that haunted her shadow memories.

Harriet Jones.

She'd recognised the face that had appeared on her vid screen. She'd seen it before, in her memories of Earth. The woman she now knew as Harriet Jones had been prey in a hunt she remembered leading. Had willingly offered herself to the pack to save another and survived. Only to be brutally executed a bare year after the day the earth was conquered, held out as an example of what happened to those who defied the Sycorax.

Blon was terrified. She'd always eschewed the more violent of her people's rituals, denied her predatory heritage, kept her claws trimmed neat and short. She didn't hunt, had never killed, but somehow she knew what it felt like to hold a life in her hands, to tear a person apart with her claws. The sensation of slipping inside the skin of a fresh kill and making it her own.

She wasn't a fighter and she wasn't brave, but she was obsessed, half mad with the shadow memories driving her, pushing her to atone for things she'd never done.

All she needed was the opportunity.

Her parents died and, being the only one of the family left, she inherited an unimaginable wealth. It bought her a time-ship and the latest in holographic cloaking technology. One day she left, heading for Earth, heading for a time and a place and a person that could be the lever she needed.

***

**Earth**

The Earth's orbit was crowded, so much so that Blon's ship went unremarked. Rendered invisible, it sliced through the atmosphere, settling gracefully onto a flattened expanse of dirt and debris, a wasteland in the heart of the city with a stagnant murky pool at its centre.

Carefully settling her robes and slinging a bag around her shoulder, she triggered the device around her throat - a miniature version of that which hid her ship - and altered her appearance to that of a Sycorax. Twisted steel gates marked the boundary between the city and the abandoned desert in which she'd landed.

Humans were everywhere she looked, shying away from her, averting their eyes. They were the first she'd ever seen, outside of pictures on a vid screen and pictures in her mind, but the acrid scent of their fear was familiar. She couldn't help but wonder if they would be less frightened or more if she dropped her illusion.

People scurried out of her way as she padded, awkward and careful, trying to move as if she truly were the size she appeared, towards her goal. It was easily found, the building unguarded, and she turned sideways to pass through the door, her hands scraping the edges despite her care.

The halls were narrow, and she felt as if she were being strangled as she made her way towards the centre of the building. There were more humans here, but she glared at anyone who looked too closely and they turned away.

There was a door at the end of the hall with human guards on either side; muscles tightening involuntarily, she easily glared them aside and pushed through the door, closing it behind her.

The woman at the desk half rose to her feet, eyes wary. "What do you want?" She looked older, more worn, than Blon had expected. But she showed no sign of fear, only a mild irritation at being interrupted.

"You're Harriet Jones." Her voice was harsh and brutal, echoing oddly in her ears, her translation unit spinning out a lie of dual language: Sycorax gutturals under machine-precise English.

"Yes, I know who I am. And I'll ask you again, what is it that you want?" Though her voice was calm, Blon could feel something close to rage roiling through the room as she bit out the words, "You're not scheduled for another collection until next week."

Hands shaking slightly, she touched the tip of a claw to her throat, triggering the device, and suddenly she looked human.

Eyes wide, Harriet sank back into her chair with an ungraceful thump. "Dear lord. Who are you?"

She had no idea how to answer that, didn't even know if she _knew_ the answer. "It doesn't matter." The fluidity of the new voice startled her, light and delicate and very human. She hadn't prepared for this conversation, had never considered anything beyond the mechanics of the plan. "I don't have much time. And neither do you."

"What do you mean?" All expression had faded from Harriet's face as she watched the stranger in her office.

Blon hesitated, then said bluntly, "You're going to be dead in three days."

Harriet folded her hands on her desk, studying them carefully. "How?" she asked, looking up.

"Executed." She paused. "I don't know the details." It was a lie. Even compared to Raxacoricofallipatorian executions, it had been brutal. She would not tell this woman, who'd come to represent the antithesis of her shadow memories, how she would die.

"And how exactly do you know this, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Time travel."

"Time travel?

Blon nodded.

"All right." Harriet raised an eyebrow, and her lips tightened. Blon wasn't certain what that meant, but she sensed it wasn't a positive sign. "So, am I to assume then - and just to ensure I understand this properly - you've come from the future to save me?"

Sarcasm wasn't part of Blon's culture, but she'd spent enough time studying earth to recognise it. Not enough to know how to deal with it, however. Uncertain how to react, she took refuge in facts. "No."

"No? Then why on earth are you here?"

"Because I think that you can change this, change all of this. Make it so this never happened."

Harriet leaned back in her chair and touched her fingers together in front of her face. "You'll forgive me if I find this just a bit convenient, a stranger appearing out of nowhere, promising they can change the world. Do you really think you're the first? How do I know you're even human? You looked like one of them when you came in."

This was something she had prepared for. Carefully manoeuvring the bag slung around her shoulders, wondering what her movements looked like to Harriet, she gingerly grasped a folder, slid it free, and placed it on the desk. "This is from a place called the Torchwood Institute. It used to be here on Earth…" As Harriet opened the file and began to read, Blon laid out her findings, her theories, all the evidence she'd spent her whole life gathering. And she began drawing out her plan. "I'll take you back, back before the Sycorax. You’ll tell yourself how to stop them. If they never carry word of this planet back to their home fleet, none of this," she waved a hand at the door, quickly checking the movement before she hit the wall, "will ever happen."

"How can you know that?" she whispered, eyes darting almost frantically between Blon and the folder in front of her. "How can you possibly know that?"

"I've spent my entire life on this. I know."

"And why exactly do you need me?" she asked. "Why not just warn me, the other me, the previous me, rather - my, time travel makes language complicated doesn't it - yourself?"

Blon turned away, fidgeted. "Would you believe me? If you hadn't been through all this, would you even be listening to me now?"

"Probably not," Harriet acknowledged with a wry twist of her lips. Straightening her shoulders, she said, "Very well."

"Just like that? "

"Just like that. You've convinced me, and if I'm going to be dead in three days anyway, I may as well. There's nothing that could make this world worse. If there's even a chance, _a chance_ , that this could go away, I have no choice but to risk it."

With a sharp nod, Blon touched the device at her throat and shimmered back into a Sycorax. She couldn't help but notice that Harriet hadn't asked what happened to her if the plan worked. But she wasn't surprised. Everything she had come to know about this woman had led her to expect nothing else.

It was how she'd known this plan would work: offer Harriet Jones a chance to save the world, and it would never occur to her to ask what it would cost. Blon’s certainty of that had sustained her in the face of memories of violence and death and sadistic pleasure.

With agreement came action, and Blon, in her guise as a Sycorax, walked two paces behind Harriet, directing her towards the ship. No one said a word as they passed, just turned to watch with a kind of stunned disbelief as they moved through the streets.

They'd passed through the twisted iron gates marking the entrance to the wasteland, when a rasping guttural growl rang out from behind them. Blon flinched. The two Sycorax walking through the gates were demanding to know where she was taking the human.

She ignored them, kept walking, hoping they could reach the ship without a confrontation, but the stamp of running feet destroyed that hope. She whirled to face them as a whip scraped across her skin with a crackle, smarting, but causing no real harm. Except to the projection field, which died with a crackle to reveal her true form.

Three sets of eyes stared at her in shocked silence, broken by Harriet's shaky voice rasping out, "Slitheen."

"No! No." She spun towards Harriet, her horror at the memories leaking into her voice. "No. That's not me, I'm not one of them." Harriet was edging away, towards the Sycorax, as if they were a source of safety. One of them grabbed her, shaking her, accusing her of conspiring with the stranger, but it was evident by the look on Harriet’s face that she didn’t understand.

Blon was trying to plan, trying to think, to choose the best course of action, but rational thought was being twisted into something frightening, something dangerous, as instinct and fear vied with it for supremacy. Panic set in, the figures before her starting to burn with a sharp radiance as her pupils dilated.

She hovered in a fog of uncertainty, knowing that she had to do something to stop this, but she couldn't move. Everything she had worked for was slipping away from her grasp, but it wasn't the danger to the plan that was sharpening instincts she'd long denied. It was the danger to Harriet.

The Sycorax were become angrier, one striking Harriet sharply, stunning her. The faint cry of pain pushed Blon over the edge. A short lunge forward and she sliced through the arms holding Harriet, then spun to sink her claws deep in the other guard’s flesh, ripping outwards. Even short, they were still lethal. Spinning back, she impaled the first and hefted him above her head, tossing the body away to slam into a burned out tree.

Eyes wide, dazed, she stared at it, her skin rippling over spasmodically twitching muscles. Movement at the edge of her peripheral vision snapped her head around, her hunter’s instincts vibrating on a razor's edge.

Harriet was slowly creeping away. She bolted and Blon darted after her, claws closing with a clash around the fragile body, dragging her backwards until they were concealed behind the ship's cloaking field. Eyes wide, Harriet held very still until, after several long seconds, Blon opened her hand and let her go, backing away until she hit the edge of the ship.

Closing her eyes, she blocked out the world, horrified at how easily she'd fallen. And she'd enjoyed it. Enjoyed the fear, enjoyed the rush of blood, the prickle of adrenaline, the surge of power. It terrified her, shadow memories merging with reality and wearing the walls between them paper thin. If Harriet had struggled…she dropped her head to her chest, crouching to the ground and curling in on herself.

***

Harriet was standing at the edge of the shimmering field, hesitating.

She recognised the beast before her. She was one of those that had nearly killed her, had killed every member of Parliament who'd been in the building, and had created the chaos that had held the others outside the city. That had, ironically enough, given her the chance to lead the Party. And that in turn had led her here, to this, this…nightmare of a life.

She was, in many ways, responsible for everything.

But still Harriet hesitated. She knew nothing of alien body language, but when the alien in question was crouched on the ground, shaking, well…some things were universal. "Was any of what you told me true?" she asked quietly.

A minute passed, two, with no response, and still Harriet waited.

Gradually, the shaking seemed to lessen and the eyes flickered open. "Yes. All of it."

Carefully approaching, Harriet stopped just out of reach. She eyed the long arms and deadly claws warily. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I remember things I never did. I remember nearly destroying this planet."

"So you are one of them, one of those ones that were here before?"

"No!" It was a snarl of denial, and Harriet flinched. "No. But I remember it all."

"How?"

"I don't know. I'm not a philosopher, I'm a scientist. I don't understand it. It's like I lived someone else's life and no matter what I do, those memories are with me. It's why I'm here. I'm trying to make amends." The laugh that scraped out of her throat was redolent with a familiar bitterness. "And now I've killed."

Harriet's anger and mistrust were fading, unable to stand against the compassion that was reasserting itself, even for this strange creature. Her reflection stared back at her from those dark eyes, along with pain and guilt and confusion. "Look, what's your name?"

"Blon."

"Well, Blon, I don't think that you can hold yourself responsible for things you didn't do, regardless of whether you remember them or not." When Blon didn't respond, she added, "Life isn't always as simple as we'd like it to be."

Eyes like black pools fastened on her. "I remember you standing in front of a girl. You were ready to die to save her. That seemed pretty simple."

Harriet looked away. It was unsettling to see herself reflected in such inhuman eyes. "Yes, well, quite a lot has changed since then." With a deep breath, she closed the distance between them, unafraid. Well, she admitted to herself, she was actually quite afraid, but she crouched in front of Blon anyway, gently touching one of the huge three-fingered hands, gingerly avoiding the claws red with blood.

Blon's breathing stilled. "I know you're afraid. I can smell your fear."

Harriet flinched, eyes wide, as she remembered being hunted through Downing Street, and those near exact words.

When Blon spoke again, she sounded weary. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I'm pleased to hear it." Slipping off her jacket, she used it to wipe the blood from those massive hands, talking all the while. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that we do the things that we have to do. We make our choices. And we live with them. Even if they haunt us."

Without thinking, Blon touched the tip of one claw to Harriet's cheek; to her surprise, the woman didn't flinch. When the huge hand fell to dangle between them, Harriet wrapped her smaller ones around it, offering what comfort she could.

***

They moved in time, and not in space, but it was worlds away from where they'd been. The pond was deep with water, the grass lush and green, the sun shining bright in the sky. It was a perfect summer's day, but Harriet turned her eyes from it as if it had seared her.

It would have to wait until well after nightfall to find Harriet-of-now, and Blon had suggested she sleep. She'd agreed, despite knowing such a thing wasn't possible - sleep at the best of times was hard to find these days, and she doubted being trapped in a spaceship with an alien she wasn't sure she trusted was likely to improve her chances.

But it wasn't these days any longer, and the sounds of Blon moving through the ship faded into the background as she fell into a fitful doze, filled with green-shadowed dreams, shot through with red.

When she woke, she kept her eyes closed, and waited patiently for the fear to catch up with her. It was her waking ritual. Fear - of everything she had to do, of everything that would happen if she failed and, secondary to those, personal fear of what might happen to her - would crash over her, and she'd master it, fighting to bring it under her control.

But it never arrived. Puzzled, she opened her eyes to find Blon watching her.

She looked away, trying to understand exactly what she was feeling. Puzzlement gave way to surprise when she realised she felt safe. It seemed rather odd, considering the circumstances, but she guessed it was hard not to feel safe when the monsters were on your side.

"Right." She pulled herself upright, straightening her clothes as best she could. "Is it time?"

"If you're sure of where you'll be, then yes." Blon paused. "Are you ready?"

"I am."

They left the ship, Blon padding behind her as they retraced the path they'd taken. Now that she knew, it was impossible to mistake the footfalls behind her for those of a human. She could feel the weight of each step, could sense Blon's looming bulk close behind her, and it was comforting to know she was there.

It was amazingly simple to get into the Prime Minister's offices when you looked like the Prime Minister. Especially after hours, when the place was nearly deserted.

The Prime Minister was working late, head bent over the desk, and Harriet walked through the door, followed by Blon, who pulled it shut behind them.

"Good lord. Is that, are you me?" Suspicion creased her brows, and Harriet held up a hand to forestall what she knew would be the next question.

"Yes it's me. I mean, you - this is confusing, so just bear with me - but I'm not an alien in disguise, this isn't a plot to take over the world. I am you."

The woman behind the desk nodded sharply. "Clichéd as it may be, can you offer me any sort of proof? Something that only I, that we - you're right, this is confusing - would know?"

Harriet had expected this, and knew exactly what to tell her. "When we put mother in the home? She was so brave, but you - we - cried for days, even though we didn't have a choice." It was a memory that, even after everything she'd seen and done, still cut deep.

Blinking away tears, her younger self bowed her head. "That's - yes, well. An excellent choice. I believe you. What are you doing here?"

Harriet took a deep breath and said as matter-of-factly as she could manage, "You'll have to forgive the melodrama of it, but I'm here to help you change the future."

"Do we discover time travel in the future?"

"No. We discover what it's like to be slaves."

Her younger self considered that in silence. "What happens?"

As simply and unemotionally as she could, she outlined the future she'd lived through. The choices she'd had to make, the world that she had lived in. She faltered once, but rallied, striving for clarity, to ensure that nothing she was saying could be misunderstood.

Pity mingled with horror in her younger self's voice as she asked, "And I'm going to have to live through that?"

"It's what waits in your future if you make the wrong choice." Harriet leaned forward, reaching to touch the woman she used to be, needing to reassure her that it didn't have to be her future. She was pulled up short when Blon grabbed her around the waist, pulling her backwards, the movement disrupting the holographic field as she said, "You can't touch each other."

The woman behind the desk froze at the sight of Blon’s true form, then leapt to her feet, sliding around the desk, grabbing the lamp off of it and brandishing it above her head. Harriet stopped her with an outstretched hand. "It's all right."

"That thing is a monster. It killed hundreds of people."

"No. She didn't." Harriet patted the arm around her waist, which slowly released her, but she stayed where she was, wearily leaning against Blon. "It's all right," she said to Blon. To herself she said, "You can't always judge from the outside. Now put that down and listen to me. There's a group that you need to know about. Torchwood. They're under the direct auspices of the Royal Family, and they deal with… oddities."

Carefully placing the lamp back down, her younger self slowly circled the desk, reclaiming her seat. "I've never heard of such a thing. I find it hard to believe that such an important organisation would be kept secret from the Prime Minister."

Had she really ever been this naïve? Harriet wondered briefly how she'd survived, but honesty forced her to acknowledge that most of her hadn't. "You don't know about it because it's the prerogative of the royal family. It's their secret project. But you need to know what it can do. They are working on a weapon, a weapon that could destroy an alien ship. You're going to have to make a choice, to let a defeated enemy withdraw or to destroy them."

Harriet felt a moment's pity for the person she’d been, for the decision she was going to have to make; but better that one hard decision than all the impossible ones that would follow. "You have to use the weapon. And remember that not everyone is honourable, that there are things more important than honour." She was being incredibly circumspect, convinced that certain people's involvement shouldn't be mentioned. Like the Doctor's. " It's up to you to make the hard decisions. Not anybody else."

"Yes. All right. I understand," her younger self said with a deep sigh. "I won't let you down."

"You never have," Harriet said with a smile.

It was returned, and the moment stretched out until her younger self looked away, wiping at her eyes. "Best you leave now, I think."

"Yes," Harriet agreed. They had done what they'd come to do, and the longer they were here, the greater the chances of something going wrong. She wasn't sure what going wrong would involve, but given they were dealing with time travel, she was certain that it would be messy.

***

It was midnight, and the moon was full, and the park was filled with trees and grass and the rustle of night creatures. Harriet wanted to weep, but she'd never allowed herself to fall victim to such foolishness and she wasn't going to start now. But knowing that this would be the future, not the wasteland she'd come to know, filled her with emotions so strong her skin could hardly contain them.

The ship was parked next to the small pond, its cloaking field encompassing a bench, and she sat down, staring out over the water, feeling old and tired. Blon followed, collapsing to the ground, leaning against the seat.

"Will it work?" Harriet asked quietly.

"I think so. I know she'll make the right choice." Blon hesitated, then added softly, "She's you."

"Well, I certainly hope she will. What happens now?"

"Now? I don't know. This has been my whole life."

"Well, then you'll have to find yourself a new life, won't you? Even if you could be held responsible for the things that you remember, and I'm sorry, but I stand by my stance that you can't, I think you've more than made up for it, don't you?"

Blon looked completely lost, and Harriet laid a gentle hand on her arm. "You're free."

"Free?"

"Free." Harriet smiled gently. "I know it's frightening, but you'll do fine."

Blon nodded. "What about you?"

"That's an excellent question. What happens to me now?"

"I'm not sure," Blon admitted. "I thought you might disappear."

Glancing down at herself, Harriet replied, "Well, I seem to still be here. How interesting."

Blon was watching her, head tilted to the side. "What do you want to do?"

"I… You know, I don't know." She sighed, pain and hope and fear all combining in a single exhalation. "I'm old. I've seen things, had to do things, I can't live with. None of which will happen now. Thanks to you."

Blon shrugged, making the bench creak. "You could come with me," she said quietly.

"What?"

"Come with me. There's nothing left for me at home, and you no longer have one."

Harriet closed her eyes and let herself lean against Blon. Let her head rest on the huge shoulder, which tensed briefly, then relaxed. For all that it wasn't human, it was still contact, touch – and there was something pleasant about the feel of muscles and the smooth, slick skin beneath her cheek.

Her entire life had been about responsibility for others. She had never and would never regret it, but that it had been lonely was something she was just realising.

Nothing like the sudden absence of something to make you aware it had been there all along.

"Yes, all right" She opened her eyes, but didn't lift her head. "Why not?"


End file.
